Plastic Bag Lunch Girl
I was what my mother always called a "special child" because I have special dietary needs and special physical restrictions--I have type 1 diabetes. My mother attended preschool with me so that she could make sure I ate all the right foods--plain pancakes without syrup, cereal with exactly four ounces of milk, one hard-boiled egg--and essentially that nothing bad would happen to me. She sometimes even napped with the class during nap-time. I don't remember much from kindergarten, but starting from first grade, I was on my own for lunch. My mother could no longer be by my side for the entire day, every day. So, every day during lunch, I would go to the nurse's office to check my blood sugar and have the nurse give me insulin (since I had not yet learned to do it myself). Then, I would impatiently wait for my mother to arrive with my lunch. I don't remember what job she had at the time, but every day, she would stop doing whatever she was doing in the middle of the ...
